Eleven

 While we were in Hilton Head, Jacob celebrated his birthday.  I know, I know, it's trite, but I can not believe he is eleven.  It makes me so sad.  As a mama with kids that truly are grown, believe me, I know how fast it goes, these past eleven years have flown by and I know the next eleven will go just as quickly.  Bittersweet to be sure.

Still, birthdays are for celebrating, and we did our best.

I knew I wasn't going to want to bake a cake in a strange kitchen on vacation, so I had researched online ahead of time and found a cupcake bakery that seemed to be highly thought of.  I begged, cajoled, bribed, threw myself on his mercy, asked Jacob if it would be all right to get his birthday treat there and thankfully he agreed.  Fortunately, they were really good.  We went early on his birthday to pick out his favorites.

After that, he asked if we could go back to Orchid's for lunch.

Easy enough.

 After lunch, we headed back to the ocean because that's what kind of vacation it was--easy peasy.  :)

After we swam a few hours, it was back to the condo for dinner.  Jacob requested a burrito/taco bar.

 After dinner, cupcakes and ice cream, then presents!!!

He got a Nerf Dart tag set, a Pokemon Black & White guide, a Pillow pet, Pokemon cards and a video game.  

He was a very, very happy boy.  :)

Most of all, hopefully, he felt very loved and very special, exactly as a birthday boy should.

Today

Today I...

• bought a new printer b/c our old one died.  Yup, I bought the same one even though there seems to be a history of at least some of them dying the same death.  I'm not totally stupid though, this time I bought a 4 year warranty and I'll be able to use the new ink cartridges I had just gotten--that cost almost as much as the printer itself.
• remembered to buy new washer hoses as ours are dripping and I've heard horror stories of them bursting while people are away and ruining their houses.
• bought a present for a dear friend who's celebrating an exciting milestone in their life.  Sent it too!  (Bonus points!)
• bought Julianna new crocs without putting it off endlessly.  Transferred the jibbits too, the truly painful part of it.  ;)
• enjoyed shopping with my oldest daughter, sharing how her style has grown, matured, developed, just like the lovely young lady she is.
• shared lunch at the mall, all four of us, for $15!  and it was yummy and filled us all up too.
• remembered I had promised Matthew we'd all go swimming soon, and made good on it.
• answered the phone as we were literally walking out the door and invited a dear little boy to join us, he did, and he was wonderful, as always.
• basked in the love that is our family as five children played and had fun.  There was no "stay away from" or "don't include ___".  All five were inclusive and friendly and loving and it was truly a beautiful thing.
• made dinner.  even though I didn't want to.  at all.  and it was good.
• watched a Taylor Swift special with my little girl.
• put coffee on to come on in the morning for my hubby, whom I love.
• had ice cream

It was a very good day.  I didn't solve world hunger or  run a multi-million dollar corporation.  I didn't even do laundry or clean my house.  But, I did help six (maybe even seven or eight) people that I care about very much feel special and included and cared about and some days that's really as good as it gets.  It was a very good day. 

Laundry Insanity

Hooray!  The vacation condo on Hilton Head had a washer and dryer.

I great big puffy-heart love having a washer and dryer on vacation.  It's insane.  Ridiculous really.

I do laundry all the time when we're away.  There are no big piles, no laundry spilling everywhere.

It's all clean, all the time.  (Big smiley face here)

I can't manage to be so enthusiastic when we're home, but when we're away it feels fantastic to come home with all the laundry fresh and clean.  No huge mountain that will take me a week to catch up.

Now, the only problem???

Heat wave!  100 degrees plus.  Let's go to the pool! 

Kidding, actually, I am a delicate flower and it's way too hot to go to the pool.  Are you crazy?  Still, I want mommy points because I thought  about taking them to the pool.  Everyone knows it's the thought that counts, right?  Right???

Anyway, thinking about the lovely act of mommy sacrifice led me to thinking about where are all the pool items?  Hey, where are the beach towels anyway? 

I haven't seen them since...

Oh.  They're in the dryer...

in Hilton Head.

*sigh*

A Bedtime Story

*sniff*

*sniff*  *sniff*

Allergies?  Ugh.  Why did I ever let the allergy medicine lapse?  I'm definitely getting the very clear message that was a big mistake.  Clearly, it's still needed.  Mommy guilt, it's like the tide of the ocean, it's high tide, it's low tide, but it's never ending, lapping at me constantly.

I get up out of bed.  It's late.  He should be long asleep right now.

It occurs to me that even though I can't give the usual med right now, I can give a 4 hour.  It might help.

I tiptoe in the room, carefully, in case against all odds he's really asleep.

I wait.  I start to leave, but then he makes a small noise, a whimper?

I go over.  Tears are flowing.

What's wrong??  I'm scared.

Of what??  Growing up.

*pause*  Why?

Because of my birthday.  I always feel like this around my birthday.

My mind's racing, trying to figure this out.  Trying not to blow it.  Instinctively I feel like this is a big deal, at least in this moment, at least to him.

I'm scared someone's going to take my animals, because I'm getting older.

I'm scared I'll have to give up my toys, my legos, now that I'm older.

Maybe I should feel relief, but I don't.  This is real, to him.  He's afraid of being rushed, pushed.  Of change.  Loss of control.

Aren't we all?

Frantically I think.  I try to find the right words.  I feel my way through.  Birthdays have been a double-edged sword for a few years now.  Clearly, it's not going away.  The tears flow faster now.  Harder.

I try to reassure.  That we'll never be the impetus to take the animals away, the toys.  That even if there comes a time he no longer wants them in his room that we can box them up, they'll still be his.

I try to talk about the positive things of growing up.  The silly way he plays with his daddy now.

I try to talk about how we chose not to have him start school at 5, with a summer birthday, even though he was obviously hideously bright because we wanted him to have the luxury of childhood, of time.

I try to talk about how much we love him and how we always will, and how we will do our best to support him and help him as he grows.

I talk about how he never has to leave toys behind.  His brother still loves Playmobil, video games.  It's okay.

I sit, we cuddle.  I rub his back and try to let him feel secure, relaxed, comforted.

I try.

I try to do all the right things, but as I leave him with a kiss, I'm sad.

I can't help but feel as though I've lied.

Because even though we will do our best not to push, not to let him feel pressured to grow up too soon, it's inevitable, isn't it?  Even if we aren't the ones doing the pushing, society will.

I wish I could wrap in a cocoon and keep him with me always, but it doesn't work that away.  I can only hope, and pray, that I as he grows I can be there to help him, to help make it all right.  To guide him into the amazing young man I know he's going to be.

Hilton Head...part 3, Gratuitous Pictures

It's late.  You know how you get back from vacation and it's a struggle to get back in the groove?  Wait!  Maybe that's just me.  I just can not find my mojo this week.  So, in lieu of a witty vacation recap, I figured I'd let those 1000 words do the talking.  :)

Did you know there are alligators in the South?  On Hilton Head there are lots of alligators.  I don't think we ever passed a pond without pausing to look for the gator.

The big picture is of the one in our backyard...literally.  They like to come out and sun themselves sometimes.  No, there are no fences.  No, we didn't get too close.  :)

 I only took my camera to the beach one day, I didn't want to take too many chances with it.  Fortunately, that was the day we found the sand dollars.  Zillions of them.  It was low tide and there was a shelf in the water of them.  The kids and Mark said you literally could not step in that area without stepping on 4 or 5 of them.  Crazy!  Unfortunately, we missed pictures of the starfish laying right beside Julianna in a tide pool!  Or the sting ray a little girl caught fishing.  Or the pelicans, which are one of my favorite sights at the ocean.  That's okay, the memories are there.  :)  (No, we didn't take anything home, if we had found it dead we would have, but otherwise it just didn't feel right to us.)

The beach is definitely the perfect place to fly a kite.

Self-explanatory.  It really was a perfect time.  Well, perfect except for the 3 jelly fish stings for Julianna, 3 for Mark, and 1 for Jacob.  Rebekah and I contented ourselves with staying in the sand and the tide--relatively jelly fish free.  Unfortunately, after Julianna's 3 stings she decided she would no longer get in the water either.  I was sad for her because she had absolutely loved it, but I definitely understand.  Three stings in one day would definitely be three strikes and I'm out for me too.

Thanks for sharing my vacation memories with me.

Hilton Head ... part 2 Good Eats

I think I'll dedicate this post to where we ate on the island.  When we were in, (on?) Hilton Head four years ago, we were really disappointed with the restaurants we encountered.  For this trip, we were prepared to eat in every meal.  The reality of that though honestly didn't thrill me.  I did not want to spend this vacation cooking.  Luckily, that didn't turn out to be necessary.

Are you a fan of Food Network's reality show The Next Food Network Star?  We enjoy it a lot.  There aren't a lot of shows on tv I feel comfortable letting J&J watch, this is a reasonably innocuous one we can all share.  Jacob and Julianna were excited to learn one of their favorite contestants, Orchid, owns a restaurant on Hilton Head, One Hot Mama's.  I had done a little research and was intrigued to learn she offers a Sunday brunch buffet complete with omelet station, Belgian waffles, eggs, fruit, potatoes, grits, BBQ, you name it, for $8.99!  Can you believe that???  Honestly, at that price I did not have high hopes.  In our town, a similar buffet will easily run you double or triple that and most places do not seem to do brunch buffets well.  I had learned however that the very last thing you want to do on Hilton Head Island is go to the grocery store Saturday evening.  Almost all rental properties switch hands on Saturday and to say the stores are insane is an atrocious understatement.  I had learned the hard way last time and will never, ever, make that mistake again.  In hopeful optimism we planned to go to One Hot Mama's for brunch then head to the grocery store.  It. was. wonderful!!  Truly, so good!  The food was perfect, the atmosphere was fun.  Total win all the way around.  The price was a big bonus too.  Another bonus?  Meeting Orchid. She was so incredibly nice and gracious and terrific with Jacob and Julianna.  I think she was eliminated way too quickly on Food Network, I think she had great potential, she can definitely cook, the food at the restaurant is absolutely delicious, and I truly believe we'll see more of her one day.  We loved One Hot Mama's so much we went back two more times over the course of the week for lunch.  Highly recommended.

Another place we enjoyed on vacation was Mrs. Wilkes' Boarding House in Savannah, Georgia.  (Savannah's only 45 minutes from Hilton Head, making it a lovely day trip.)  The last time we were in Savannah we had eaten at The Lady and Sons, Paula Deen's restaurant.  It was good, and fun, but a little "been there, done that" to do again.  We'd seen Mrs. Wilkes' in the book 1000 Things to do Before You Die book years ago and ever since we'd been hoping to go there if we ever got back to Savannah.  The line begins forming around 10 AM, the restaurant opens at 11:00.  The day we were in Savannah, was HOT.  Not as hot as the last time, thankfully, then it was 114 degrees, this time it was "only" 95!  Ouch!  Jacob and Julianna were definitely not all that thrilled with the wait.

When threatened with the loss of an afternoon meal they did manage to find their smiles though.  

Even though they tried hard at first not to.  :) 

(Don't feel too sorry for them, we were waiting in shade and there was a bench to sit on.  It was humid though.  I learned I could never live in the South.  How do they deal with that constant hot, humid air?) 

Rebekah, being older, took it all a little bit more in stride and enjoyed exploring the gardens and homes nearby while we waited.  She got some great shots.

The "dinner" was interesting.  The food was plentiful and very good.  Platters and platters graced the table, it's all served family style.  The tables all seat 10 and it too is family style, which means we were seated with another family of 5--complete strangers to all of us.  For someone who is an extreme introvert like I am, it was uncomfortable.  I would go back because Mark absolutely loved it, but I personally did not enjoy that aspect of it.


After lunch we explored Savannah some more.  Savannah's great, but have I mentioned it's hot?  Anyway, soon we departed back to Hilton Head and our beloved beach.


Another place we greatly enjoyed was Stack's Pancakes.  It's hard to express how good it was.  Maybe it's a good thing we discovered it the last day on the island, because we would have loved to have eaten there more often.  I had Eggs Benedict with blue crab, perfectly cooked, thank you very much.  Rebekah and Jacob both loved their crepes with Nutella and fresh fruit.  If I ever get so lucky as to go there again I'm definitely trying the Bananas Foster Creme Brulee french toast.  Can you imagine how delicious that sounds??


Honorable restaurant mentions go to Guiseppi's pizza and Hilton Head Ice Cream.  Twice, we ended perfect days on the beach with ordering awesome pizza, showering, and settling in for friendly (?) game competitions with that pizza.  Guiseppi's pizza is delicious, they have an x-large that is insanely big and insanely good.  Highly recommend it as the perfect thing when you don't want to cook and you don't want to go out.  Hilton Head ice cream was an adventure.  After receiving your ice cream, which seemed to be as premium as it gets, there was a table full of toppings to add--sauces, candies, you name it.  Jacob and Julianna were in overload heaven.  One word of caution, do not go near the place with someone with a peanut allergy.  There are in-shell peanuts on the tables and spanish peanuts sitting out on the toppings table.  There would not be a way to get a safe dish of ice cream there.


Well, that was the highlights of our culinary week.  I did cook, some, which was just about perfect.  It was nice to find the perfect balance for our family, and I'm looking forward to revisiting some of our old-favorites if we're ever lucky enough to get to go back.

Hello Again

Wow!  I absolutely can not believe it has been 30 days since I last posted.  I wish I could say there was a reason, but the truth is more boring, and wonderful, than that--I've just been busy, living in the moment, clinging to summer with everything I've got and still feeling like it's slipping through my fingertips.

I've lots of posts percolating around in my head, hopefully I'll get to them soon, I do think there's stuff worth saying up there, but for now, I'm just going to draw the proverbial line in the sand and start again.

Last week, we were in Hilton Head for vacation. 

Years and years ago, when I was pregnant with Rebekah, Mark told me he really didn't like that we didn't take an annual vacation.  Neither one of us had grown up doing that, and I guess I had it in my head that that was something "other people" got to do--rich people.  After he expressed how he felt though, we made it a priority and, except for the year Jason & Lori got married, we have taken a special annual vacation ever since.  Some years fancier than others, sometimes it's been Disney, sometimes it's been camping, but either way, we've always had a spectacular time.  I must say, for the most part, we do vacations well.

I think one thing that makes our vacation special is that it feels special.  We do things very differently on vacation than we do at home and surely that contributes to the awareness we all have that things have changed.  We don't do electronics, for the most part, on vacation.  There are no headphones, no endless texting.  Very minimal checking of voicemail, and then mainly Mark checking in once a day for work (what?  nothing's perfectly perfect.)  There are no video games, no tv, no laptops, it's just all family, all the time.  I love it!  We play games, we read, we talk, we act silly.  It's everything I always want vacation to be.  We always come home determined to hang on to those feelings, but unfortunately they always seem to fade once we're home for a short time.  Maybe one day we'll figure out how to hang on.  (Actually, I'm exploring giving up tv, not just cable, but all tv...we'll see.  Surprisingly to me, the savings aren't as big as I thought they'd be and now that I'm back in my electrical environment it makes me breath a little faster when I think about never being able to watch the news, check the weather during a severe storm, watch my shows...etc.  Our tvs are super old, so if we give up cable there's no getting a signal on any of them.)

Anyway.  Hilton Head.  

Mark's previous boss owns a condo there which he rents out to people he knows for a very affordable rate.  I love that even though he doesn't work at the same company anymore, he still allows us to rent it.  We had gone once before, four years ago, and when we were trying to figure out something special, but not too expensive to do this summer, we asked him if we could rent it again.  It's absolutely wonderful.  His wife's touches are everywhere, she's truly helped make it a very comfortable home away from home.  Incredibly sadly, she passed away four months ago very suddenly.  I was in the condo about 10 minutes when the sadness of it overwhelmed me and I cried.  They were a special couple, very together, very family oriented and I know it has rocked his world to lose her.  Life rarely makes sense, does it?

We wrestled for weeks about whether we were going to leave for vacation Friday, late afternoon and break the trip up into 2 parts or do it all in one day Saturday.  Finally, we decided it was worth it to spend the extra $$ and leave Friday.  I'm glad we did.  Once you're in vacation mode, the worries just ebb away.  We left around 4:00, perfect timing, we were in Athens by 6:00.  Athens is where Ohio U is, Rebekah was very excited to be back to her 'home away from home' for dinner.  After a delicious dinner (Big Mama's burritos and Bagel Street are hard to beat if you're visiting), we were back on the road.  We made it to Wytheville, VA, Friday night.  We would have liked to have gone farther, but there was a big accident that slowed things down for an hour or so.  For whatever reason (and we never could find out why), the first few hotels we checked out in Wytheville were full.  We ended up at a Ramada, if you're ever looking for a place to stay in Wytheville--keep looking.  Gross!  Nothing like a mildewed bathroom for a weary traveler!


Saturday we were on our way bright and early.  We stopped for lunch at Cracker Barrel (I always want to apologize somehow when I say this), I love Cracker Barrel!  I don't like a lot of chains, but there's something about when you're traveling and knowing wherever you are you'll encounter the same thing there.  We all enjoyed our lunch, the kids always get a treat when we leave, it was a very relaxing way to continue our journey, definitely welcome after the hotel.  We got to the condo early evening Saturday and headed right for the beach.


There is something so soothing for me about the ocean.  It literally calms my soul.


Pretty sure this is long enough for now, I'll call it part one and promise to be back soon with more.  


How about you?  Do you do a family vacation every year?  Is vacation different for you or is your life pretty much the same wherever you are?